


Make Our Lives Whole

by rsadelle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil warned him, and sent him pictures, but it's still a shock when the footsteps that come running toward Tyler's hello are human instead of canine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Our Lives Whole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dine/gifts).



> Written for Dine for the prompt, "something domestic with Phil Kessel/Tyler Bozak." The idea is elqiao's, and she graciously let me use it. Title from Roger Caras: "Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."

Phil warned him, and sent him pictures, but it's still a shock when the footsteps that come running toward Tyler's hello are human instead of canine.

The little girl he recognizes from pictures skids to a stop in front of him. "Uncle Tyler!" She turns around. "Look!"

Her wavy blonde hair falls to her shoulders, and below it the blue and white shirt she's wearing says "Bozak 42."

She turns around with a wide grin, and Tyler can't possibly resist that. He crouches down and gathers her into a hug. "Hi, Stella. Sweet shirt." He picks her up as he stands.

"I made Daddy get me one with your name on it. I have another one with his name." Stella's arms wind around his neck, and Tyler carries her into the living room where Phil is standing in the middle of the room because he couldn't be bothered to come to the door or didn't want to see the look on Tyler's face when Stella ran up to him.

Tyler scoffs. "Why would you want Daddy's name? Mine is way better."

"Hey," Phil says mildly. "She's my kid."

"Mine's still better," Tyler says. He glances from Phil to Stella, not sure what he can do now that Stella's a kid and not a dog.

Phil makes the decision for him, wrapping one arm around Tyler's back and leaning in for a kiss. "Hi."

"Hi." Tyler nuzzles at Phil's jaw for a second, until Stella squirms to be let down.

"How was your summer?" Phil asks.

Tyler rolls his eyes. "I texted you all the time. You know how my summer was." He kisses Phil again, lightly. Stella is now completely absorbed in something involving Legos, so he feels safe in asking, "How have things been here?"

Phil shrugs a little. "You know. Taking care of Stella."

Tyler doesn't know, not really, which is why he was asking.

"Uncle Tyler, come play with me."

"Give me just a couple of minutes, baby," Tyler says. "I need to put some of my things away." He's not going to bother to unpack, but he grabs all of his bags from the entryway and takes them into Phil's room. He can see through the open door that his room has become Stella's for the duration.

Phil follows him, carrying Tyler's suit bag. Tyler would give him hell for picking the lightest of the bags, but he didn't have to carry any of them.

"Are you okay with this?" Phil asks.

"I don't have much of a choice," Tyler says. He catches at Phil's hips, squeezing at the bulk that comes with offseason training and weight gain. "It's still Stella, right?"

"Right," Phil says.

Tyler nods. "Right, then. Too bad we can't fuck or swear, though."

Phil looks more alarmed than he has by anything else that's happened since Tyler walked in the door. "We can still fuck. Later, when she's asleep."

Tyler pushes one hand up under Phil's shirt and moves the other around to squeeze Phil's ass. "I was going to fuck you, and you can't be that quiet when I do." He recognizes the blush on Phil's face as the one he gets when he's turned on and leaves him in the bedroom to get himself under control while Tyler goes to play Legos with Stella.

*

They've moved on from Legos to playing with the tiny indoor hockey set that's new since Tyler left for the summer when Stella puts down her stick and goes over to tug on Phil's shirt. "Daddy, I'm hungry."

"Me too," Tyler says. He's always hungry anyway, and it's lunch time. "Chipotle?"

Stella turns wide eyes on Phil. "Please, can we, Daddy?"

Phil caves, exactly the way he does for Stella in normal times. "Go put on your shoes."

"Yay!" Stella throws her arms in the air, then goes running to the door.

Tyler and Phil follow her at a normal adult pace, and they all put on shoes. It's strange to leave for lunch without having to make sure Stella the dog is set up to be home alone, but the way Phil tells Stella to stay close is pretty much the same way he always tells her when they take her out.

Phil orders Stella a kid's meal quesadilla, which she eats in tiny, distracted bites while she looks around at all the people in the Chipotle and all the people walking past it. Probably one of them should tell her to keep her butt in her chair the way Tyler's mom used to tell him when he was little, but Tyler doesn't care that much and Phil doesn't either, so she wanders over to the windows, stands on her chair, climbs over into Phil's lap.

Stella eats half her quesadilla and most of her beans and rice before she declares herself done. Phil and Tyler split the rest of her quesadilla, finish off her chips and their burritos, and take her home before she can get bored enough to cause trouble. They're already getting dirty looks for being bad parents or whatever because they're letting her wander around.

Stella conks out for a nap after they get home, falling asleep in the middle of the living room floor while flipping through a picture book on Phil's iPad.

"Oh, thank God," Tyler says. "I'm tired already."

"You've only been here for three hours," Phil says. He carefully picks Stella up and carries her into Tyler's room where he tucks her in under the pink flowered sheets that definitely weren't there when Tyler left for the summer. He kisses her forehead, then pulls the door mostly closed. "I've had her for two weeks."

"You've had time to get used to it," Tyler says. "And I'm jet lagged." He pushes Phil into his room where they both strip down to their underwear and climb into bed. Tyler would like to do something about Phil mostly naked in a bed, but he's too tired for it.

*

Tyler is wrapped entirely around Phil when he wakes up. He rubs his hips against Phil's ass out of habit before he wakes up enough to remember why he hasn't gotten laid yet today. Now that he thinks about it, he can hear Stella talking to herself down the hall since they didn't close their door all the way either.

"Why'd you stop?" Phil asks sleepily.

"Because your baby is an actual baby," Tyler says. "I don't want to traumatize her for life."

"She's heard us fuck plenty of times."

"When she was a _dog_. I don't want doggie Stella to be scared of us because of something we did while she was a kid."

Phil turns over. "Mandy's theory is that she's a Stella from an alternate universe who switches places with the other Stella sometimes."

As much as it pains him to do it, Tyler takes his hands off of Phil's body. "That's even worse. I'm not traumatizing some kid who has to go back and live with that trauma." He's so focused on how much he would rather keep groping Phil's offseason bulk that it takes him a minute to realize the other implication of what Phil just said. "What do you mean sometimes? Has this happened before?"

"A couple of times," Phil says.

"What the fuck?" Tyler gets out of bed and pulls on some clothes. Not getting to fuck Phil seems like less of an issue at the moment. "You never thought you should tell me about that?"

"It hasn't happened in a long time," Phil says. He also gets out of bed and picks up his clothes off the floor. "I didn't think it would again."

Tyler pauses with his hand on the doorknob. "How long has it been?"

"Couple of years."

Tyler's pretty sure what Phil means is that it hasn't happened since before the last time Phil got dumped. "Still should have told me."

Tyler goes out to the living room where Stella is sitting on the couch, her legs straight out in front of her, iPad on her lap. She's so small compared to the couch that only her ankles and feet are dangling off of it. She kicks her feet a little while Tyler watches, and then looks up when she notices he's there.

Tyler sits down next to her and puts an arm around her. "Are you happy?" It's maybe a big question for such a little girl, and one who isn't usually a girl. Unless Amanda's right and she usually is, just somewhere else.

"Yep," Stella says. She leans trustingly against Tyler's side. "I love you, Uncle Tyler."

Tyler looks down at her with more surprise than he probably should have at that. "Me too, baby." He bends over to kiss the top of her head. It's hard to stay mad at Phil for not telling him about this when Stella is so perfectly adorable and loving. "Do you think if we asked him to, Daddy would come read us a story?"

Stella holds out the iPad, both hands carefully gripping the sides. "Daddy, will you read us a story?"

Phil's been watching them from the edge of the room, but he comes over to the couch and takes the iPad from Stella. "Of course I will."

Before Phil can start reading, Tyler leans over Stella's head to kiss him. Stella kicks her feet and waits for them to be done.

"It's good to be home," Tyler says, and then he pulls Stella onto his lap so Phil can read them a story.


End file.
